Many commercial operations require a fleet of vehicles to transport material. For increased profitability of the operation, the fleet of vehicles must be well maintained. Among other things, maintenance of these vehicles is affected by the quality of the roads over which they travel. Poor maintenance of the roads, while saving road maintenance costs, may increase vehicle maintenance costs (vehicle down time, cost of repair, etc.) by negatively affecting the quality of the roads. On the other hand, over maintenance of the roads may result in money and effort spent unnecessarily. In general, efficiency of a commercial operation that uses a fleet of vehicles may be improved by scheduling road maintenance with a view to minimize total costs.
One commercial operation where a fleet of trucks is used to transport material includes mining. In a typical mine site, a fleet of haul trucks transport excavated material (ore, supplies, etc.) over mine roads. Efficient operation and profitability of the mine are affected by the quality of the mine roads. For example, the grade and quality of the mine roads affect the size of the payload that can be transported over a section of the mine road, transportation time, vehicle health, fuel usage, etc. Traditionally, maintenance of the mine roads have been highly reactive. That is, mine road defects are repaired as they occur, with'little planning or scheduling. This ad-hoc maintenance approach is inefficient and increases costs by over or under maintenance of the mine roads.
One approach at improving road conditions is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,817,936 issued to Schricker (the '936 patent) on Oct. 6, 1998. In particular, the '936 patent discloses detecting an abnormal road surface condition by sensing machine parameters as a mobile machine traverses a segment of the road. These parameters are then used to calculate a resistance factor for the road segment. The calculated resistance factor is compared with an average resistance factor, and an abnormal condition of the road surface can thus be detected. If an abnormal condition is detected, the road is repaired to correct the condition.
Although the method of the '936 patent may sufficiently detect an abnormal surface condition of the road, it does not provide an intuitive graphical user interface that facilitates analysis of the collected data and development of an optimized road maintenance approach. Instead, the method disclosed in the '936 patent is limited to detection of road damage only, followed by routine reactive repair when resources become available.
The present disclosure is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.